10 weeks in...

Whoooo, 10 weeks in already! In an attempt to catch everyone up as to what’s been happening and what to expect, I'll start at the beginning.
A few weeks before I was due to start my course, I still hadn't received my start date! I was getting a bit worried, but phoned the university and discovered they hadn’t received my DBS form. For those unfamiliar with it, it’s a criminal record check. Pretty straightforward, but I had assumed the College would also get a copy. Silly me, you know what they say about assuming! I had my start date and information shortly after that.

I started on a Thursday, and the idea was to have a week and a bit as an introduction, with the main student’s union telling us about wristbands to get into clubs and student happy hours. A few of the group were interested in that, but I wasn’t. As a mature student, it’s straight home for me, unfortunately! We also had a talk from the Nursing student union, the 1000 Lives campaign, Welsh Territorial Army and loads of others. I joined two unions, it was just £10 a year for each, so why not. One was Unison and the other was the Royal College of Nursing. I think that even though both have had a bit of bad press regarding pay strikes recently, I think I’ll only renew with the RCN as they have a fabulous library and loads of online books. I’m also receiving online journal editions, which should come in handy for essays!

As far as lectures go, we’ve had a lot on social media and how not to behave in public. These lectures usually end with how many nurses have been struck off the register for behaving inappropriately on social media. It’s really scary, and I can’t imagine losing my entire career for something so trivial. You would never be able to practice as a nurse again, and I’m sorry, but three years of my life is not being thrown down the toilet for something so trivial! (The fact that my social media accounts remain utterly boring and full of photos of kids and horses is actually a comforting thought!)

Dignity has also been a huge, huge part of lectures. Our first essay is based on this subject, and since the Andrews and Francis reports, it’s at the forefront of practice more than ever. Any potential student nurses/midwives out there, make it the first textbook you buy! We’ve also had lectures on biosciences, law, ethics, you name it. Most of these were very basic introductions to what will come later.

In terms of practical days, we’ve completed our manual handling and violence and aggression passports. These form a part of your portfolio, so they are very important documents. The portfolio itself is a huge document (bilingual in Wales - someone needs to think of the trees…) that has every item you learn in the three years, from treating people with dignity to working competently on your own. We’ve had a patients day which was actually great fun. We washed each others arms, legs and hands, cleaned teeth, fed each other with yogurt and water and made beds. It was very strange to be so intimate with people we hardly knew, and I think it will serve us well to remember that people we look after have been self caring for years and that suddenly having a stranger take over this care would be highly uncomfortable and embarrassing. We have also had an exam (gulp!) in basic life support. This is essentially CPR, in the theory that early intervention will prevent a heart attack, but that we also have the tools necessary to help keep someone alive long enough for proper help, such as paramedics or a resuscitation team to arrive.

And practice. Yes, after only eight weeks we were unleashed on the general population! I think every single one of us was a bit weak at the knees the day before, but honestly, everyone has been so lovely and supportive. No matter what I say, you will worry before going out, but at least feel reassured that we’ve made it, we’ve all been nervous but that nobody has eaten us.  

I’m back in practice next week for three weeks, so hopefully I’ll have more tales to tell soon! (Censored, of course!)

Occupational Health

Today I had my occupational health check before I start university. It was really nerve wracking, but then I always tend to get really nervous of the unknown. I arrived half an hour early because I had left plenty of time to find the correct building in the unfamiliar maze of the university. After signing a couple of forms consenting to blood tests, I settled in to wait, reading out of date magazines. 

I didn't have to wait long before the nurse called me in and asked for my ID, which she photocopied on the way to her room. We talked through the long form I'd had to fill in a few months ago, and she just confirmed my answers. I was told to get a second MMR vaccination, as I had one as a child, and a single Rubella booster a few years ago. My arm was also checked for the BCG scar, as I needed proof of two immunisations. My blood pressure was taken, and it came out a bit on the high side. Not surprising, given the hike I'd undertaken to get there from the car park! I completed a peak flow, and she needed a urine sample for a dipstick test. She also checked the integrity of the skin on my hands, just to check I had no Eczema. She advised me that when I start the course to dry my hands thoroughly, as a small problem can soon amount to a large one. 

She then sent me off for a blood test for the Hepatitis B and C antibodies and antigens (to see if I have it or am immune to it), HIV and Varicella. The test was just one little tube of blood, as the Hepatitis vaccines I'll need to start my course will be timetabled in. Apparently we all troop over in a group in the first month! 

So ladies and gents, that should comprise your Occupational Health check for University!

I saw some beautiful old buildings today that I think used to be an old ostler's stable. I passed the coffee shops, library and shops that pepper the buildings. I found a little museum that I think will be interesting, and hopefully one day I'll get the time to explore it. I'm really looking forward to starting, it seems such a relaxed and multicultural setting, the babble of foreign languages was quite nice to hear. However at nearly nine years older than many of the students walking around the campus, I felt a bit out of place. I suppose I'll stop caring about that once I'm in university, and would spend a lot of time on placement anyway. 

Two months and counting...

I'm a brand new, shiny student nurse, beginning in March 2015. I've been on the lookout for any blogs or books relating to student nursing in the UK. I found one great book about a student midwife, called "Journal of a Student Midwife" by Ellie Ryan. It's a great book chronicling the disasters, work and worries of a healthcare student in the UK. But I have still been unable to find a student nurse book, so I thought I'd write my own to hopefully be published in three years time. Also Blood Sweat & Tea by Tom Reynolds, a paramedic in the London Ambulance Service. Again, not nursing, but still front line healthcare. His book is pretty much unaltered from his blog, which makes each entry very diary like. He writes about the time wasters and the gravely ill that are too unsure to dial 999, and sets right the drama filled, medically incorrect scenes from television shows. The second book, More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea is just as gripping.

There's two months left until I begin my degree in adult nursing. I recently had a discussion with my husband about why I chose nursing, instead of a teaching degree or business management. (OK, not business, it bores the snot out of me). I think it's to have a sense of security in life. Most things I could learn by joining the St John's Ambulance, or doing a course in CPR for £50, but I think having the knowledge to actually help people, and be calm in a crisis is a big attraction. To have a feeling of responsibility to other people, to make them comfortable and show them that someone cares. (Although the thought of having someone "crash" in front of me terrifies me).

It's been a boring and quiet ten months. I finished my access course with distinctions across the board, and was super pleased with that as I've always thought myself to be too stupid for university. I have some intelligence, but years of holding a job that required little in the way of thought process left my brain feeling a bit...muddy. Are there any brain cells left? Well there must be! I must admit I cried both when reading my acceptance letter to college, and when my online application was updated with an acceptance to my first choice university. I was a teeny bit miffed that I started in March, but eventually came around to the idea that being a mature student, the March cohort would suit me better, being all old and boring and really not into the whole freshers thing (I'll be 30 around halfway through my first year). Though I am annoyed that I never got to swipe free pens from the society booths. I remember thinking a whole ten months! Enough time to grow a baby and get back into it! But thinking twice about that I just threw myself into horse riding and trying to keep myself busy for nearly a year. Which I must have managed successfully as I have two - count 'em - two months to go until I walk into university as one of the first degree students in my family. Woop! My bursary firms are complete, loan application filled out months ago, and am now planning my future.

I've heard that there is an elective placement some time in the second year, and as I plan to work in critical care unless some other speciality jumps up and bites me on the bum, I aim to find a placement in an ITU. I'd love to get the chance to work in some remote part of the world, I've seen many programs that facilitate placements in Peru and parts of Africa, but in all reality, a working husband and two young children will not make this easy. So I have resolved to try and further my career with carefully thought out placements.

I am also planning to move soon. It needs to be somewhere close to university but also on the motorway corridor, as my husband's job as a software developer requires him to be living somewhere a bit more populated. This will be fun! I can't see me updating this until it gets a bit closer to my start date, so to my one reader, hang in there ;)